Robot grocery delivery service to expand in Northamptonshire

More supermarket delivery robots will be taking to the streets of Northamptonshire.

Stores in Northampton, Milton Keynes and Cambourne, Cambridgeshire, already use the autonomous vehicles in partnership with Starship Technologies.

North Northamptonshire Council said Wellingborough, Rushden and Higham Ferrers would now be able to access the service.

Conservative councillor Graham Lawman said it was "extremely exciting".

The Tory-run council has joined with four Co-op stores to bring the service to 45,000 residents across 33,000 households in the three initial locations.

Mr Lawman described them as "rather cute delivery robots".

"This new service is another innovation that we are supporting to help to provide a clean and green alternative to the private car for day-to-day convenience shopping, helping to reduce emissions," he said.

The firm behind the robots said in an average delivery journey they used energy equivalent to that needed for a kettle to boil a cup of water.

The robots were lightweight and could travel at human walking pace - no faster than 4mph (6km/h).

They use a combination of sensors, artificial intelligence and machine learning to travel on pavements and navigate around obstacles, while computer vision-based navigation helps them map their environment to the nearest inch.

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